Dr. Joël Núñez

is a New Jersey state licensed clinical psychologist. In 1996, he earned a Bachelor's Degree with Honors in Psychology from Drew University in Madison, NJ. He earned a full scholarship to study psychology at The Pennsylvania State University in University Park, PA. As a graduate student, he was awarded the prestigious Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans on the basis of scholarly merit, academic promise, and potential to contribute to public life in America. Dr. Núñez graduated in 2003 with a Ph.D. in Psychology. He completed his pre-doctoral clinical internship at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School/UMDNJ in Piscataway, NJ. Following internship, he worked as a bilingual clinical psychologist at an inpatient psychiatric hospital in Secaucus, NJ, earning his license to practice psychology in 2006. Thereafter, Dr. Núñez worked as a consultant psychologist at a residential facility in Totowa, NJ, treating adolescents and adults living with developmental disabilities, severe and persistent mental illness, and other life challenges. He also provided clinical supervision for psychologists-in-training at an inpatient psychiatric hospital. Dr. Núñez owns and operates PROV 205 Psychological Services a group psychotherapy practice in Bayonne, NJ where he and his team of psychologists treat individuals, couples, and families facing various challenges in living. In addition, he is a published author and public speaker appearing locally and nationally on topics of mental health, self-care and optimizing human performance. Finally, Dr. Núñez serves as an elder at the Cityline Church of Jersey City where he teaches and provides professional pastoral counseling. He, his wife and three children live in Northern New Jersey.

If you are like many Americans, you are concerned about the growing achievement gap between rich and poor children. It is the not-so-secret epidemic happening in plain sight. By 2020, more than 65% of American jobs will require at least a four-year college degree, meaning that less affluent children who are failing to do well in elementary and high school right now are preparing to be left out of economic opportunity and will continue the disastrous cycles of generational poverty, community violence, and mass incarceration.

Just as children suffering from chronic hunger are listless, lethergic, unfocused and thus have grave difficulty attending to a school lesson, so do children suffering from chronically low self-esteem experience similar challenges. Just as poverty is toxic to the child's brain, flooding cerebral areas essential for learning with the stress hormone/neuro-chemical cortisol, so is diminshed self-worth toxic to the mind and heart of a child.

Only moments before I had brought up the anecdote of my 7-year-old daughter’s experience at a spelling bee in which everyone won because the children who were not prepared to do well were given on-the-spot assistance from a teacher; I employ the anecdote as a vehicle to discuss my deep conviction that when we shield children from failure we are invariably denying them an opportunity for growth.